


Something Old, Something New

by alocalband



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: First Time, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 04:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11729493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/pseuds/alocalband
Summary: “I can’t marry you.”Ronan rears back on the bed, blinking and looking as startled as Adam has ever seen him.





	Something Old, Something New

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Pynch Week 2017 and [cross-posted to Tumblr.](http://alocalband.tumblr.com/post/163581033840/loosely-based-on-the-pynch-week-day-1-prompts)

“I can’t marry you.”

Ronan rears back on the bed, blinking and looking as startled as Adam has ever seen him.

“I can’t even legally drink yet,” Adam rushes to add, rambling uncharacteristically, but he’s had this all nervously stewing in him for days now. “I’ve still got three more years of undergrad, and no idea what I’ll be doing after that, or what _you’ll_ be doing, or-- I can’t marry you. Maybe one day, but not right now. I mean, hell, we’ve only been dating, what, six months? And yeah, I love you, like, more than I knew was possible, but--”

Ronan holds a hand up between them and Adam gratefully shuts up at the gesture.

“Do I look like I’m getting down on one knee here, Parrish?”

What he looks like is someone who has spent the last hour making out with Adam on the tiny twin bed in Adam’s dorm room. 

They haven’t seen each other in a few weeks, not since Christmas Break, and Adam’s roommate is away for the weekend. The moment Ronan laid eyes on him when Adam opened the door an hour ago, he broke out in a predatory grin and pounced.

They’ve been taking it relatively slow with the physical intimacy up until now. Half the time that they’re alone together they’re both thoroughly content with nothing more than lingering kisses and gentle touches. The mere act of being close to Ronan is like a revelation, and Ronan seems to feel the same way in regards to being near Adam.

But Ronan mentioned during one of his rare phone calls recently that he might want to take things further soon. 

Well, he hinted. Awkwardly. Adam still got the message.

And then Gansey commented idly the other day that Ronan seemed to have surprisingly traditional views when it comes to romantic entanglements. To which Blue had snorted an amused, “Figures that out of all of us,  _Lynch_ is the one waiting for marriage.”

And then Adam’s stupid brain had spiraled from there into frenzied anxiety over the course of the next several days, convinced that this was Ronan’s plan.

It didn’t help that the last time Opal FaceTimed him, Ronan was banging around in the background and muttering to himself with a harshness Adam hadn’t witnessed in awhile.

“Is he alright?” Adam asked her.

Opal shrugged a little while gnawing on what looked like a piece of a chair. “Kerah is loud when he’s scared.”

Adam frowned. “Scared?”

Opal huffed and rolled her eyes, looking as much like a true Lynch as ever. “He can dream a ring but not a hand for it.”

_Well, alright then._

Adam rolls over onto his back on the bed and throws an arm over his eyes. He can feel Ronan shift beside him. They’re still both fully clothed, which is unusual, despite the slow pace they’ve set for themselves over the last few months. They tend to keep their hands above the waist, but stripping down to their boxerbriefs became pretty standard right off the bat.

As close as they can get to each other, as many layers as they can peel away, will always be the goal. It’s less about undressing Ronan as it is about knowing him.

“It’s just. I thought maybe you’d want to, you know... wait. Until we were married.”

Ronan goes very still, and Adam is afraid to look at him, but removes his arm and peeks over anyway. Ronan’s fair complexion gives away his embarrassment with a bright blush across his cheeks. Though, to be fair, he was already pretty red, lips swollen attractively, from their earlier activities.

He scowls at Adam. “Just because I bought condoms, doesn’t mean--”

“And Opal mentioned a ring.”

Ronan groans and falls forward, half on top of Adam, to bury his face in the pillow. The stubble along his sharp jaw tickles at the shell of Adam’s ear as he breathes.

“There might have been a ring,” he finally admits, muffled from his position, and sounding angry enough that Adam knows he’s well and truly embarrassed now. “But it was an accident.”

“An accident?” He can’t help the disbelieving tone.

“Fuck you, I don’t always have the best control over what I bring back, alright? Especially when I’m all, you know, happy and shit. I dreamt a ring, I brought it back, and then I chucked it into the field with the cows. _It was an accident_.”

“...Oh.” A soft, amused laugh is punched from out of Adam’s chest. He finds he’s smiling a little now, and wasn’t even aware of the transition from nervousness to tentative joy until after the fact. 

Ronan has that effect on him sometimes. Just casually turning Adam’s worldview on its head without Adam noticing in time to be able to put up his usual defenses against it.

“So, you... don’t want to wait?”

Ronan shifts, but doesn’t lift his head. His hand grabs hold of Adam’s shirt over his stomach and grips it tightly, knuckles going white. “I didn’t realize you were in such a rush,” he mutters.

The words he’s not saying are clear in the words he is, and Adam is quick to bring an arm up to wrap around Ronan’s broad back. “Hey, no, I have been more than happy with the way things are going. And if what we’ve been doing is all we _ever_ do, I will have absolutely no problem with that.”

Ronan does lift his head then, so that he can catch Adam’s gaze and smirk. “Because you ‘love’ me?”

And then it’s Adam’s turn to blush. He knows they’re on the same page here, and Ronan has said it to _him_ often enough that Adam’s actually starting to believe that Ronan’s love is a thing he maybe gets to have. But Adam has never explicitly said it back. Not with those words.

He swallows thickly. “Do you want me to say it again?”

“Only if _you_ want to.” Ronan leans down and lightly kisses the apple of Adam’s left cheek, then his right, lips brushing gently across tanned skin and freckles.

Adam closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath. “I love you,” he whispers on the exhale. It feels easier now that it’s already been pulled out of him once. It feels less like a heavy truth and more like a happy inevitability.

Ronan moves his lips down to Adam’s and kisses him, long and thorough. 

Adam gets lost in it easily. He will never not be starving for this.  


It’s several minutes later, the both of them panting, their shirts and jeans finally discarded somewhere on the floor, that Ronan nips at Adam’s collarbone and then pulls away to look him in the eyes. He cradles Adam’s face in one hand with a deliberate tenderness. Not as if Adam were breakable, but as if he were precious. “Do you want to keep going?” he asks quietly.

Adam can feel where Ronan is hard against his hip. His own erection is straining against his underwear. “Yeah. If you do?”

Ronan nods. “Can I, uh, can I try something?” 

Adam would ask for clarification, but the way Ronan glances down between them and licks his lips has Adam suddenly winded. “ _Please_ ,” he manages, voice strained.

Ronan grins. And then slides down Adam’s body until he’s kneeling between Adam’s legs. He tucks two fingers into the waistband of Adam’s underwear, pauses like he’s still debating how to approach this whole thing, and then dives in just as recklessly and passionately as he does everything else. He strips Adam bare, stares down at him with a greedy gaze for long enough that Adam starts to squirm, and then takes Adam into his mouth like it’s a fucking act of worship.

It’s messy, unpracticed, and so much more sensation than Adam has ever felt that he comes mortifyingly quickly. Though he at least has the wherewithal to warn Ronan first.

Ronan throws himself back down onto the bed beside Adam, licking his swollen lips and stretching out his jaw, though the radiant grin on his face never wavers. He appears to be basking in a self-satisfied ‘job well done’ euphoria as much as Adam is basking in his orgasm. 

And so Adam, never one to back down from a challenge, returns the favor with his own stubborn determination. 

Ronan doesn’t last even half as long as he did.  


They clean up with a discarded shirt that Adam hopes is Ronan’s, and then fall against each other back on the bed possibly even more keyed up than they were before. It feels like when they were first figuring out magic together, and no matter how exhausted they would get were always still eager to discover more.

“So you really won’t marry me, huh?” Ronan teases, smiling and holding Adam against him as close as he possibly can. “I’m wounded.”

“We are nineteen years old, Lynch.” Adam rolls his eyes.

Ronan just keeps smiling, fingers tracing patterns on Adam’s chest. “And I’ve already got a farm and a kid, Parrish. You saying I can’t have a husband too?”

“Jesus, you’re impossible. Ask me again after I graduate.”

Ronan’s smile softens, and his gaze turns vulnerable. An uncommon and exceptional sight, even when the two of them are at their most intimate. “Yeah?”

Adam cups Ronan’s cheek in his palm, as gently as he knows how. He smiles back. “Yeah.”


End file.
